Social influence: COMPLIANCE

Technique 1: Foot-in-the-door

Technique 3: Door-in-the face

With the hope of persuading people to agree to a larger request (actual target) by first getting them to make a commitment by asking for a smaller request.

>>> therefore increase compliance

When a first request is made that will definitely be turned down; then a second request is made which asks less of someone, person recognises lowered request to accommodate them >>> people feel more inclined to accept.

Example: Petitions = simple act of signing petition can influence an individual's behaviour regarding the issue itself.

Works on an individual's feelings of guilt; inclining them to take the offer into consideration much more than they initially would.

This technique works on the basis of commitment; people want to be consistent and therefore tend to comply with the request in order to stand with their choice made.

Cialdini et al. (1975)

Example: When salesperson lowers first cost because it was too expensive for the customer. Once that first compromise is made: customer is more likely to make the purchase.

Dickerson et al. (1992)

The team posed as representatives of “County Youth Counselling Program” on the campus of a university. They first stopped the students and asked their willingness to chaperone juvenile delinquents on a day trip to the zoo.

¬ 83% refused to volunteer

Second time; they stopped students and asked if they were willing to work 2hrs per week as counsellors for 2+ years.

¬ No one agreed (0%)

Asked first request again following their refusal.

¬ 50% agreed.

The researchers tried to support the foot-in-the-door compliance technique by aiming to see if they could get university students to conserve water in their dormitory showers. First the researchers asked the students to sign a poster stating "take a shorter shower. If I can do it, so can you!"  Then they asked them to take a survey designed to make them consider their own water usage.

As their shower times were monitored, they found that the students that complied to the first 2 requests had showered for only 3.5 minutes on average. This time is significantly shorter than the average across the dormitory. It was concluded that the participants felt committed to the cause by only signing up to the petition. This technique demonstrated to be effective by making participants save water and take shorter showers. 

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS:

> High ecological validity – in a natural environment and with a realistic situation

> Only used Californian university students as participants, thus unable to generalise results on larger population.

> Overt – eliminates demand characteristsics

ETHICS:

> Deception, no informed consent, though no harm/distress implicated on participants.

ETHICS:

> Deception, no informed consent.

> Measuring of time that is conventionally very personal. Invasion of personal time and space.

METHODOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS:

> Artificial situation; low ecological validity

> Only used Californian university students, thus results cannot be generalised on a larger population

> Could be argued that the participants only signed because they were committed to issue prior to study

> No repeats

> No quantitative measurement of shower times before the study

Compliance Techniques

Social influence: COMPLIANCE

Techniques which enable individuals to respond favourably to any explicit/implicit requests made by others.

> Implicit: indirect advertising promoting some product

> Explicit: direct request for a charity donation

Technique 2: Low-balling

Mentioning the drawbacks of an offer to the target person only after they have agreed and committed to it.

For example >>> a car salesman offers a customer a good deal which they accept. The salesman then finds an excuse to change the deal which is consequently less attractive to the customer. Often customers agree to the new, less desirable offer though they're not happy about it. This is because they already committed to their decision.

Cialdini et al. (1974)

Researchers asked a class of first-year psychology college students to volunteer in a study on cognition that would start at 7am >>> 24% of students were willing to participate.

A second group was asked the same favour without the detail about time >>> 56% agreed to participate.

When they were told to meet at 7am, with the given the option to back out if they wished.

>>> No one backed out and on the day 95% showed up for the 7am meeting.

Ethics:

> Deception, no informed consent

> However debriefed afterward

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS:

> University lecture – students would have felt obliged, feeling as if it could impact their learning.

> No repeats

> Only university students used as participants therefore difficult to generalise for larger population.

Cialdini's study shows the effectiveness of Low-balling compliance technique in that 56% of students complied with participating in the study when LB was used, as opposed to 24% when LB was not used.